Plastic has taken the place of other materials in a variety of industries. In the packaging industry, plastic has replaced glass to minimize breakage, reduce weight, and reduce energy consumed in manufacturing and transport. In other industries, plastic has replaced metal to minimize corrosion, reduce weight, and provide color-in-bulk products.
Attracting consumers to purchase individually-sized or family-sized containers includes branding and trade dress. Among the elements of valuable trade dress is the color of the container. Moreover, such color may need to co-exist with translucency, transparency, or other special effects for the bottle, such as metallic or pearlescent appearance.
Modern consumer products demand eye-catching attention. Producers of consumer products compete for available shelf space in retail businesses. The outer appearance of a product, including its shape, color, texture, and labeling is the first impression for a consumer. Producers undertake considerable efforts to display a desired appearance to attract the consumer to the product. Such outer appearance, over time and with exclusivity, achieves a form of intellectual property for the producer, called trade dress, which offers a visual differentiation for commodity products and another differentiation for unique products.
Thermoplastic resins are used for the production of consumer products. Ranging from the clear, plastic, large soft drink bottles to the miniature colored cosmetic vials, polyethylene terephthalate (PET and one type of the class of polymers called polyesters) as a resin has been frequently used because of its low cost and ability to be compounded with colorants. Most importantly, polyesters such as PET can be formed into products by conventional blow-molding techniques. Molded products made by the blow-molding techniques take the shape and outer texture according to the mold used.
Films have previously included polyolefins in transparent polyesters to impart translucency or opacity, including such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,368,295 (Newton et al.). But Newton et al. did not address use of polyesters and polyolefins in colored polymeric films.